The proteomic response of the reef coral Pocillopora acuta to experimentally elevated temperatures
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Cell Biology, Environmental Sciences, Marine Biology, Molecular Biology, Climate Change Biology
- Keywords
- coral reefs, dinoflagellates, proteomics, global climate change, endosymbiosis, osmoregulation, temperature stress, marine molecular biology, cell physiology
- Copyright
- © 2017 Mayfield et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2017. The proteomic response of the reef coral Pocillopora acuta to experimentally elevated temperatures. PeerJ Preprints 5:e3252v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.3252v1
Abstract
Although most reef-building corals live near the upper threshold of their thermotolerance, some scleractinians are resilient to temperature increases. For instance, Pocillopora acuta specimens from an upwelling habitat in Southern Taiwan survived a 9-month experimental exposure to 30°C, a temperature hypothesized to induce stress. To gain a greater understanding of the molecular pathways underlying such high-temperature acclimation, the protein profiles of experimental controls incubated at 27°C were compared to those of conspecific P. acuta specimens exposed to 30°C for two, four, or eight weeks, and differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) were removed from the protein gels and sequenced with mass spectrometry. Sixty unique DEPs were uncovered across both eukaryotic compartments of the P. acuta-dinoflagellate (genus Symbiodinium) mutualism, and Symbiodinium were more likely to up-regulate protein expression in response to high temperature exposure than the coral hosts in which they resided at the 2-week sampling time. Furthermore, different cellular pathways were affected by elevated temperature exposure in each compartment; Symbiodinium tended to up-regulate the expression of proteins involved in the cellular stress response, whereas the differentially expressed host coral proteome featured numerous proteins involved in cytoskeletal structure, immunity, and metabolism. These proteome-scale data suggest that the coral host and its intracellular dinoflagellates have differing cellular strategies for acclimating to elevated temperatures.
Author Comment
This is a submission to PeerJ for review.
Supplemental Information
Peptide sequences for differentially expressed proteins identified at the two-week sampling time
The 13 and 25 unique proteins over-expressed after two weeks by samples of the control (C) and high temperature (H) treatments, respectively, were included. Additional details of the sequenced proteins can be found in the main text (Table 2). The compartment of origin has been mentioned next to the spot number except when it could not be determined. Sym=Symbiodinium.
Peptide sequences for the differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) identified at the four-week sampling time
The 8 and 4 proteins over-expressed after four weeks by samples of the control (C) and high temperature (H) treatments, respectively, were included. Additional details of the sequenced proteins can be found in the main text (Table 3). No unique DEPs were identified from spots H5 and H6. The compartment of origin has been included next to the spot number. Sym=Symbiodinium.
Peptide sequences for the differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) identified at the eight-week sampling time
The 6 and 19 proteins over-expressed after four weeks by samples of the control (C) and high temperature (H) treatments, respectively, were included. Additional details of the sequenced proteins can be found in the main text (Table 4). The compartment of origin has been included next to the spot number. Sym=Symbiodinium. bact=bacterial.